When do I use "I" instead of "me?"

Solution 1:

Your method of removing the others is indeed correct. At least, that is what I used to do when I was in high school.

Always try using "I" or "me" in the singular, for the same sentence. For instance, people might say: "Robert and me are going to town." Which is wrong, because one does not say "Me am going to town." Therefore the correct way to say it is "Robert and I are going to town."

However, this sentence is also wrong: "The police arrested Robert and I", because if it were in the singular, one would not say "the police arrested I", it is, "the police arrested me." Therefore one should say, "The police arrested Robert and me."

Solution 2:

If a pronoun is the subject of a verb, then you use I. Otherwise you use me.

Exceptions:

• If it is the complement of a linking verb (such as be), traditional grammar says to use I in most circumstances, but this is very formal and use of me is extremely widespread in all but the most formal contexts.
• Myself is used as the object of a reflexive verb (“I hurt myself”), as an intensifier (“I myself will go”), and can be used in absolutive clauses (“for my wife and myself it was a happy time”)

Solution 3:

Vincent McNabb has already answered this question but I would like to add one more point.

In older-fashioned prescriptive grammars, it was stated that "I" should be used as the complement of the verb "to be" in most circumstances, so that

It is I

rather than

It is me

was held to be the correct form. This only applied to verbs like "to be" that take predicative complements, so that, for example

Give it to I

was never regarded as a correct form.